Cheap iPhone? Look to the Past

Even though you may not know it, that $199 iPhone you can buy from apple.com already is discounted. In the United States, most cell phones are sold at a subsidized price. Though they won’t discuss specifics, both AT&T and Verizon pay Apple quite a bit more than your $199 when you buy a new iPhone -- but they know they’ll make the money back by locking you into a two-year contract. Phone subsidies explain why contract-free iPhones sell for several hundred dollars more from Apple -- and why you can’t purchase a new phone every year for the “discounted” price from your carrier.

Your best deal on an iPhone is usually last year’s model.

As for discounts beyond the subsidy, those are hard to come by. Every now and then, mass market retailers like Walmart or Best Buy might shave a few dollars off the cost of new iPhone hardware, but those discounts are hardly worth waiting around for, and they still require a contract. If you break your phone in the middle of your contract, a used model from eBay can save you money from the unsubsidized price of a new phone that you’d otherwise pay.

The one way to really save money on an iPhone is to buy a last-gen model. At press time, Apple was selling the 8GB iPhone 3GS for a mere $49, and by the time you read this, the next-gen iPhone model will probably be bringing down the price of an iPhone 4 considerably.

Comments

My Wife's 3G is showing its age badly, trying to convince her to hold out for the iPhone5 announcement so she can pick up a Ver4 on the cheap. Not sure what the rumored price on the 5 will be, but I'm pretty sure a discounted 4 will do just fine.

you may buy some repair parts from dealsteady.com for your wife's 3G. and when you have iphone 4, could take a look at dealsteady.com, there are many apple gadgets for your iphone and the coming iphone 5.